Norway, continued...

Wednesday, we woke up really early, said goodbye to our wonderful hosts, and then headed to the train station. We got on the train at 8:00, direction Oslo, went for an hour, and then ended up spending 3 hours on a bus, because they were working on the tracks. We found out later that the reason they were working on the tracks was because there had been so much rain this year (more than normal, which is terrifying, because it rains a ton in Norway) that the tracks were washed out. So, we spent 3 hours on a bus which ended up being awesome—we saw some really cool countryside that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. At one point though, we were really high up, and the outside temperature was 3 C. And this was on September 14^th! Yikes.
















This is the landscape from the bus, between Bergen and Oslo. It was BEAUTIFUL.
















Land of the waterfalls.

We got back on the train later, and made it to Oslo around 3 pm. We found our hotel (we had wanted to stay with more Couchsurfers, but couldn’t find any, so we finally broke down and paid for a hotel), which ended up being half the price that we had expected which was a god send. Whew. Thanks, world! We walked around for a while, saw the new Opera house which looks like an iceberg, and did some restaurant hunting.

Me, on an iceberg!

We had wanted to find some traditional Norwegian food, but utterly failed to find it. Really. There was one sort of Norwegian restaurant that we were going to go to, then didn’t like the look of it, and went to another restaurant, Akataka. Great food, great wine, and seriously expensive. As is, I’m afraid to convert the price from Kroner to Euro. But hey, screw it, we had been really frugal up until then, and we wanted a nice dinner, gosh darnit.

Thursday was our last day in Norway, and we had a full docket. We took a ferry across the harbor and went to the Folk Museum which was really cool. Lots of folk art, as well as models with furniture, clothing, and household objects etc. over time. Really neat. Then, we went into the replica village, of Norwegian homes through time. The old ones were SO cool. They’re built a good 4 feet off the ground, with these big, heavy logs, usually only one big room inside, and with grass growing on all of the roofs. Must be good insulation. The doors were all really small, which I didn’t understand, but they were entertaining to walk through. They had more modern houses too, but they weren’t quite as interesting. We were bummed that we came some late in the season, because normally there are people dressed up and the whole 9 yards, and I had been excited for that. Ah well. Still very cool.

Many of the houses were built a good 4 or 5 feet off the ground. It was amazing how they could balance and stay up on such small supports, though. We couldn't decide if it was to keep the houses out of the snow or the water... maybe both.

The best part was the grass on all of the roofs, which we had actually seen on normal houses as well. Probably good for insulation. Cool idea, at any rate.

The Stavekirken. Basically the coolest church/building in Norway. Made all out of wood, and looks like a Chinese import. Built in 1212 (and then dismantled and rebuilt where it currently is).

Next up was the Viking Ship museum, which, as you may have guessed contains Viking Ships from the 9^th century. Wow. They have 2 that are almost entirely intact, as they were buried with people, and covered with mud which is a great may to preserve things. They were huge!! And really cool. Wow. There were a lot of artifacts buried with the people, and they had the skeletons as well, and were able to do all sorts of research on them. Cool stuff. I wish the museum had been bigger, and with more information about the Viking age, but alas it was not. Still, neat.

Huge boat with Emily for reference.

The coolest thing is that they haven't been restored at all--this is quite literally how they were found, after about 700 years underground. Wow.

Next, we went into Vigeland Park which has some of the strangest sculptures I’ve seen—all people, doing interesting/strange poses, with lots of babies. Hum.

Sealia is so cute I can hardly stand it.

Statues and a human column. Weird, but really pretty.

Last, we had gotten in touch with a Mount Holyoke alum who lives in Oslo, who had invited us to dinner. She’s class of ’55 and her name is Ruth. So, we spent a really lovely evening with her and her husband, talking about everything and anything, with good food and wine. It was really cool to hear about MHC in the 50’s. It’s changed a lot since then. No house mothers, for one. So, that was a lot of fun, and a really good way to end our trip.

We headed home (so cold out!), packed, slept for 3 hours, and then woke up again and walked down to the bus station (even colder out!). We left for the airport at 4:00, got there an hour later, and flew back to Montpellier! Goodbye, Norway, hello southern France :) And, oh my goodness, there’s.... SUN!